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Invitation to Poetry: Thomas Merton on Silence

Robin Lake - Poetry Party PhotoWelcome to Poetry Party #82!

I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.

Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link and link back to this post inviting others to join us).

 

We began this month with a Community Lectio Divina practice with a quote from Thomas Merton and followed up with our Photo Party on the theme of Silence. (You are most welcome to still participate).  We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month. What are you continuing to discover about silence in this darker season of the year? We welcome your poetic reflections.

This month’s photo is by Robin Lake and she explains it as such:

Solitude, stillness and being present to the moment have been my focus for 2014. Just last night, I was sitting in my car after a holiday gathering downtown and once again was struck by how the holy is everywhere. The neon lights of the city became jewels in the mist of my windows, rivulets casting shadow on the altar of my dashboard. Passing cars became the sounds of ocean waves as they processed down the wet streets. I became lost in the wonder of the moment, reflected in the ordinary. My heart is full.

You can post your poem either in the comment section below* or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with more than 2600 members!) and post there.

*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.

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50 Responses

  1. Winter Afternoon

    Gently
    Lavender cloud quilts
    Become purple
    As does water
    And mountains
    Distant snowfields
    Decorate their shoulders
    A single freighter
    Drifts across the ferry lights
    Slips through the still blue waters
    Into the distant dusk
    And out to sea
    Indigo

  2. In Silence
    I contemplate the Beauty
    of the One
    who Loves me Here
    and through Eternity
    who completes me now
    who doesn’t see my ugliness
    who sees the beauty imparted
    of forgiveness
    Emanuel,God with us.

  3. Stillness
    Like a blanket of dew
    Cover my anxious thoughts
    Allowing me to be still
    And know that you are God.
    The answers I seek
    Will come.
    For now
    Serenity whispers,
    “Just trust.”

  4. Little Rivers

    There is a space between raindrops–
    the soft twist and slide
    down glass and brick —
    where what is muffled finds its home
    where what is emptied finds its song
    where what is baptized finds its soul.
    There, in that space, is a stillness
    that skirts refraction.
    Colors bend and blur until borders
    lose definition
    and all mingle, cleansed of division.
    Hush.
    Noise and silence
    body and spirit
    melt into one holy
    current.